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Intellectual Virtues and Truth, Understanding, and Wisdom

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Intellectual Virtues and Truth, Understanding, and Wisdom This is not a final draft. Please cite final version, which is forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Virtue, ed. Nancy Snow (OUP). INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES AND TRUTH, UNDERSTANDING, AND WISDOM Jason Baehr Loyola Marymount University It is a familiar feature of virtues, whether moral, intellectual, or otherwise, that they aim beyond themselves, that is, that they have a characteristic end or goal. And yet there are several aspects of this feature that bear further scrutiny. For instance, what exactly is the nature of the relevant “aiming” relation? Is it primarily causal? Intentional? Or do virtues aim at their respective ends in some deeper metaphysical sense?1 A further question concerns the ends themselves. At what exactly do virtues aim? This is the issue taken up in the present chapter. I focus in particular on intellectual virtues, addressing the question: What is the proper aim or end of an intellectual virtue? As with many philosophical questions, the answer to this one depends in a significant way on certain prior commitments or assumptions. Specifically, I argue that how we should think about the aim or end of intellectual virtues turns in no small part on our initial conception of what an intellectual virtues is—a matter about which there is little agreement in the philosophical literature.2 One of my central claims is that if we understand intellectual virtues as “personal excellences” like curiosity, open-mindedness, and intellectual courage, then we should conceive of them as aiming at wisdom—in particular, at theoretical wisdom or sophia. This represents a significant departure from standard ways of thinking about intellectual virtues. 1. “Orthodox” and “Unorthodox” Conceptions of Intellectual Virtue We can begin by drawing a distinction between two accounts of what it is for something to be an intellectual virtue. The distinction is not exhaustive. However, it maps fairly well onto the two main ways in which virtue epistemologists have tended to think about intellectual virtues.3 According to the first conception, intellectual virtues are, as a matter of definition, a constitutive element of knowledge. In particular, they largely (if not entirely) constitute the justificatory or warrant component of knowledge. Subscribers of this conception accept some variation of the view that knowledge is true belief produced by (and true on account of) an exercise of one or more intellectual virtues.4 Note that—at least in principle—this leaves wide open which qualities or capacities might count as intellectual virtues. Intellectual virtues could be cognitive faculties like memory or vision; or they could be intellectual character strengths like curiosity or intellectual tenacity.5 The important point is that, on the present conception, the appeal to intellectual virtue is part of an attempt to describe the nature of knowledge. Intellectual virtues just are a central ingredient of knowledge. Given the traditional concern in epistemology with 1 trying to specify the essential or defining features of knowledge, and given the focus of several early views in virtue epistemology (e.g. Sosa 1991), we can refer to this as the “orthodox” conception of intellectual virtues.6 An illustration may be helpful for clarifying this conception. In her pioneering 1996 book Virtues of the Mind, Linda Zagzebski argues that knowledge is true belief arising from acts of “acts of intellectual virtue,” where intellectual virtues are understood as excellences of intellectual character along the lines noted above. To perform an “act of intellectual virtue,” a person must perform the actions and instantiate the motives characteristic of intellectual virtues and form a true belief as a result (270). Zagzebski’s proposal has been criticized on the grounds that a great deal of knowledge can be acquired independently of any virtuous intellectual actions or motives.7 A considerable amount of basic perceptual knowledge, for instance, appears to be acquirable strictly on account of the natural or “brute” operation of our cognitive faculties—an operation that needn’t involve the kinds of actions or motives characteristic of intellectual character strengths like open-mindedness, intellectual courage, or intellectual thoroughness. Suppose this criticism is right. The important point is that if the orthodox conception of intellectual virtues is correct, then what Zagzebski calls “intellectual virtues”— open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and so on—are not intellectual virtues after all, for neither they nor their constitutive elements (i.e. characteristic actions and motives) are an essential feature of knowledge. Again, on the orthodox view, the concept of intellectual virtue has application only to such features. On an “unorthodox” view of intellectual virtues, the concept of intellectual virtue has philosophical significance and is of philosophical interest apart from any role it may or may not play in a satisfactory analysis of knowledge. More precisely, something counts as an intellectual virtue independently of such considerations.8 Potentially, this conception contains even greater leeway when it comes to the sorts of qualities or capacities that count as intellectual virtues (e.g. whether cognitive faculties like vision or memory or intellectual character strengths like open-mindedness and intellectual tenacity). For “unorthodoxy” in this context is simply a denial of orthodoxy. Again, on an unorthodox conception of intellectual virtues, a quality or capacity need not be a contributor to knowledge in order to be an intellectual virtue. Per the Zagzebski example above, this leaves open the possibility that intellectual character strengths might count as intellectual virtues even if they are not required for knowledge. An unorthodox conception of intellectual virtues is also open in a second and related way. On an orthodox conception, there is no question about what gives intellectual virtues their status as virtues, that is, about the sense in which they are good or excellent. They are virtues because of their contribution to knowledge. By contrast, on an unorthodox conception, the kind of excellence instantiated by intellectual virtues is not settled in advance. Indeed, there are, at least in theory, any number of ways in which a given quality or capacity might achieve its status as an intellectual virtue. With respect to the first kind of leeway noted above, while an unorthodox conception of intellectual virtues leaves wide open which qualities or capacities might count as 2 intellectual virtues, in reality, its proponents have tended to think of intellectual virtues as excellences of intellectual character. Some have taken to exploring connections between intellectual character virtues and other cognitive practices or goods like inquiry (Hookway 2003), epistemic justice (Fricker 2007), and education (Baehr 2013 and 2016). Others have developed models of the nature and structure of an intellectual virtue (Zagzebski 1996; Baehr 2011) and of individual virtues like open-mindedness, intellectual courage, intellectual humility, and curiosity (Roberts and Wood 2007). By contrast, proponents of unorthodoxy have given scant attention to reliable cognitive faculties like memory or vision. With respect to the second way in which an unorthodox conception is open, its subscribers have adopted an array of views concerning what gives intellectual virtues their status as virtues. For some, intellectual virtues are such because of their systematic causal connection with epistemic goods like truth (Driver 2003). For others, it is their contribution to human flourishing that explains their status as virtues (Roberts and Wood 2007). And for other still, the qualities in question are intellectual virtues because of their contribution to their possessor’s personal intellectual excellence or worth, that is, because they make their possessor good or admirable qua person (Zagzebski 1996; Baehr 2011). To summarize: proponents of an “orthodox” conception of intellectual virtue stipulate a conceptual connection between intellectual virtues and knowledge. Intellectual virtues just are the qualities or capacities necessary for acquiring knowledge. Proponents of an “unorthodox” conception resist this stipulation. They take an independent interest in the concept of intellectual virtue and offer a range of accounts as to what gives intellectual virtues their status as virtues. 2. The Aim of Intellectual Virtues We are now in a position to address the central question of this chapter: namely, what is the proper end or goal of intellectual virtues? At what do intellectual virtues, qua intellectual virtues, aim? Unsurprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether one is thinking about intellectual virtues along orthodox or unorthodox lines. An exploration of how and why this is the case will, I hope, shed significant light, not only on our options for thinking about the aim of intellectual virtues, but also on other aspects of these qualities, including their role within the broader epistemic landscape. 2.1. The binary thesis We can begin by taking a step back and considering an initial response that is likely to prove disagreeable to proponents of orthodoxy and unorthodoxy alike. Several epistemologists have identified “truth” or true belief as the goal of our epistemic states and processes. More specifically, the “epistemic goal” has been identified as the acquisition of as much truth or as many true beliefs as possible.9 In keeping with this view, it has also been
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